Political Parties Must Be Blocked from Coming to Power

Workers' Daily Internet Edition : Article Index :

On Tony Blair's "Wreckers" Speech:
Political Parties Must Be Blocked from Coming to Power

South East London Stop the War Coalition:
Who Won the War in Afghanistan?

Probe into Truth about US Mass Killings Called For

At the heart of Tony Blair's speech on Sunday was his determination to draw battle lines between the Labour Party, which stands for reform, and the Conservatives/conservatives, who are wreckers. As such, he was revisiting an old "Third Way" theme. This is to tar all opponents of the Labour Party programme with the same brush, that there is a unity between the old left and the new right in opposing the programme of "reform". At his speech to the Labour Party Local Government and Women's conference in Cardiff on February 3, he took this theme further in that those that oppose reform, whether they are the "big C Conservatives who want to undermine public services" or the "small c conservatives who believe the old ways will do and who resist reform", are to be classed as "wreckers". "Reformers versus wreckers." This was his line of demarcation.

In our view, Tony Blair's aim is to block reforms where they really count, that is, the necessity to radically transform society so that the rights of the members of society are actually made paramount and given a guarantee. His method is identify the Labour Party with a political trend, declare this to be the only valid political trend, and declare that all who are opposed to the programme of the Labour Party must be classed as wreckers. Thus there is to be a veto on informed debate on what political programme is necessary to transform society to meet the claims of its members, and certainly there is to be no ideological struggle, because this amounts to wrecking.

It is an extremely serious situation when a political party takes to branding its opponents as wreckers. This stand of Tony Blair is underlining that to open the way to the resolving the crisis of society, a renewal of the political processes is required so that in the end political parties must be blocked from coming to power. Because it reveals that far from involving the people in decision making, the political system is in fact serving to foster divisions and disunity on a scale which itself could be said to amount to the wrecking of the polity.

By contributing to the marginalisation of the working class from political affairs, the Labour Party is pursuing a path that cannot succeed in extricating society from its crisis. The issue is, what reforms are needed? What is a modern definition of the public service ethos? What society will guarantee the claims of its members? Tony Blair is opposed to answers to all these questions being rationally debated.

Just to take one of his lines of argument – if investment in public services is needed, as he declares and is undoubtedly the case, then what is the issue with involving the private sector? A government has the power to grant investments from public funds. Why is there a need for the "private sector" to have anything to do with satisfying the claims of human beings in society? If funds from the "private sector" – i.e. those who are concerned with making a profit – are required, the government can stop paying out handouts to this sector, can delay paying them debt interest – whatever is necessary to fund the public services. These are reforms which undoubtedly could be made.

In summary, therefore, the system which is based on political parties vying to come to power and sort out the problems of the rich and powerful is itself contributing to blocking the solution to the crisis, and must be renewed. The alternative required can be begun by the workers demanding that their interests be represented, and beginning to develop the workers' opposition to this programme of New Labour and to the whole party-dominated system.

On the January 31, the South East London branch of the Stop the War Coalition held a very lively meeting in Lewisham entitled "Who won the war in Afghanistan?". The two speakers – Ann Alexander from the Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Piers Hussein from Lawyers against the War both gave very spirited and informative talks against the continued bombing of Afghanistan war against "terrorism" to an enthusiastic audience. They pointed out that, despite Blair and Bush’s arrogant boasts of "victory", the war still continues with many innocent Afghan people being killed. They placed the continuance of the war in the wider context of the situation both at home and in the world as a whole.

Ann Alexander pointed out in her talk that Blair and Bush’s so-called "war against terrorism" is merely an excuse to justify the escalation of wars all over the world. She said that it was no coincidence that since September 11, as well as the war in Afghanistan, there has been a marked escalation of the US-backed attacks by the Israeli government led by Ariel Sharon against the Palestinian people. She pointed out that over 930 Palestinians have been killed in September and October alone. The speaker gave a vivid historical account of the brutal way the Palestinians have been treated saying that Sharon was responsible for the massacre of 2,000 Palestinian people in refugee camps in 1982 – an act of deliberate provocation. She drew the connections between Afghanistan, Palestine and Bosnia, condemning the obscenity of the most up-to-date vicious weapons by the richest and most powerful countries in the world being used on defenceless people living in some of the poorest countries. She said that this assault of the rich and powerful against the weak and unarmed was backed to the hilt by the big international corporations and industrial complexes. She ended by saying that the struggle was not "east v west" and that the Palestinian and other struggles of the worlds people touches us all. Blair is also attacking our health service, our schools and public transport; his policies can only lead to more wars and more crises.

The speaker from Lawyers against the War gave a spirited condemnation of Blunket’s Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, pointing out that it represents new attacks on civil liberties. He exposed the hypocrisy of this anti-terrorism legislation and Britain and the US’s quest for the "rule of law" pointing out that war affects us all. He said that this legislation was not just the result of the September 11 attacks as new anti-terrorism legislation had already been passed in 2000. The Terrorism Act 2000 had made the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which previously had had to be renewed periodically, permanent and also extended it. All this legislation redefined "terrorism" as being merely the "threat of action" (not violence); as such it could be used against anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist demonstrations. He went on to say that the rights of refugees were swept aside if the government happens not to agree with their political opinions. The new legislation even amounts to "thought crime" – you can be arrested if you do not tell the police/authorities of "suspect" remarks made in a pub for instance. He ended by calling on these laws to be removed.

The meeting ended with many contributions from the floor with several people condemning Bush’s warmongering "State of the Union" speech. There was a general call for the anti-war actions to be continued and intensified and it was emphasised how important it is to make the forthcoming anti-war demonstration on March 2 a big success.

On Friday, BBC 2 screened a Timewatch programme on American war crimes in Korea. The programme revealed that during the Korean war, US troops received the order to kill all Koreans on the move in refugee convoys with the instruction: "Kill 'em all … eight to 80, blind or crippled or crazy …" In July 1950, No-gun Ri was the location of one of the largest civilian massacres in US military history.

The south Korean headquarters of the nationwide special investigation committee for probing the truth behind GIs' massacres (Jonminthukwi) reportedly issued an urgent statement on January 26 as regards the disclosure of GIs' mass killings of civilians made by BBC. The statement quoted BBC as saying that civilians were killed by US forces in many other places during the Korean War besides the No-gun Ri massacre, after the US command issued an order to indiscriminately kill civilians.

This once again objectively supports the assertion of Jonminthukwi that US forces committed organised and premeditated mass killings throughout the Korean peninsula, it said. It recalled the fact that at the Korean War crimes tribunal held in New York in June last year the organisation condemned the US crimes before the world conscience and declared it guilty. But the US has denied the crimes related to the mass killings in No-gun Ri, it noted, demanding the US clarify the truth before the world conscience and bear full responsibility for the crimes.

Accusing the South Korean authorities of failing to properly probe the truth while reading the US face, the statement said that they, though belatedly, should promptly probe the truth about the mass killings committed before, after and during the Korean War and come out to reinstate those who met grievous deaths.